Civil society and democracy : the case of union activism in Luanda

Sammanfattning: Based on fieldwork interviews from two different trade unions in Luanda, this study aims to reflect on the role of civil society for the consolidation of democracy in Angola, and in particular, the challenges of trade unionism and its effects on democracy. Using the meth-od of inductive reasoning to process data, it first addresses themes derived from the inter-views such as Financial struggles, Trade union resistance and Lack of a grassroots-perspective, themes which are then analyzed in relation to Larry Diamonds Conventional notion of civil society. Special emphasis is placed on Angola as a case of the African ex-perience, where the state of human rights, and particularly political rights, are in many cases limited. Using the Conventional notion of civil society, it argues that democratic consolidation will continue to be a difficult task for trade unions to achieve if their auton-omy is constantly under attack. However, it also argues that the Conventional notion of civil society, is inadequate for the reality in Luanda, since it is rather a depiction of desires of how civil society should act, than acknowledging the conditions that govern the actions of civil society.